Eventually the guards return, five of them, and the teenagers get to their feet.
Whatever is about to happen to her, she will find out right now.
‘You will go with my men,’ says one, presumably their leader. ‘And you’re to leave immediately.’
‘Go where?’ a boy asks.
The guard fires back the usual answer. ‘‘You’ll find out when you get there.’
‘What about our families?’ Magda has finally found her voice. She thinks of her mother and grandfather pacing the small classroom, waiting for her to return.
‘They will join you later. Enough questions. In the schoolyard I want you to line up and wait for my instructions.’
‘You can’t do this!’ explodes Zuzana. ‘You can’t separate us from our families!’
‘Make some trouble, I dare you,’ the guard says. ‘And your family will pay for it.’ When the room falls silent once more, the guard nods, once. ‘Good. Go.’
The schoolyard is empty but, glancing up, Magda catches sight of faces pressed against the classroom windows. She doesn’t see her mother. Parents call out to their children as they’re led out of the school grounds and away.
Magda recognises the route they’re taking: they’re heading back to the train station. I was right, she thinks glumly, as they are led onto the platform, where a train idles on the tracks. She has never felt more alone. Is this what Cibi and Livi went through? Did they feel abandoned and terrified? Of course they did. Cold sweat seeps through her thin blouse as she boards the train to watch the town of Nováky disappear.
*
Magda jolts awake as the train grinds to a halt. How long has she been asleep? The memory of being separated from her mother and grandfather rushes in and the hollow pit in her stomach growls.
They have arrived in the city of Banská Bystrica in central Slovakia.
Once again they’re on the march. The midday sun beats down on them. Once more they find themselves in a school, in small classrooms.
‘Do you think they will feed us?’ a girl asks when the guards have locked them inside. ‘I’m starving.’
‘I’m sure they will,’ placates Magda. The last thing they need is to become hysterical.
‘I don’t have any other clothes with me,’ another girl says.
‘None of us do,’ says Magda. ‘We’re all in the same boat, so let’s just sit down and get comfortable.’
It is dark when the guards return to take them to the toilets, after which they are fed stale bread and coffee.
Magda hopes to sleep now she has something in her stomach, but the bread feels like a rock in her tummy, and the coffee has left a sour taste in her mouth. The despair she sensed in the crowd, as they marched towards the first school, now washes over her. She stifles her sobs, but around her, no one is making the same effort. Eventually, exhaustion overwhelms her and Magda falls asleep to the sound of girls crying.
*
Two toilet breaks, an hour of exercise and two meals a day: the same drill as Nováky, but its familiar routine brings Magda no comfort.
One night, Magda dreams of streets filled with Hlinka guards fighting with the townspeople of Vranov. Jews and non-Jews alike battle the men for the sake of the town, for the end of Nazi tyranny.
‘You need to get out,’ a voice tells her and then says it again louder.
But Magda wants to fight the guards. She’s not going anywhere. Her eyes flick open, she isn’t dreaming. A figure hovers in the doorway, saying the same words over and over: ‘You need to get out.’ Magda sits up; everyone is on their feet now, disoriented, alarmed. What is going on?
The stranger is a big man, with dark curly hair that hangs in damp coils around his face. He has a cut on one cheek, bloodied knuckles. He is sweating profusely, breathing hard. ‘All of you. Come on. You need to run!’ he yells, waving at the girls to start moving.
Magda is instantly alert. This is what they’ve been waiting for, she realises – to be rescued! The girls shove and push each other out of the way as they scramble for the door.
Magda enters the schoolyard just as the first faint rays of sun announce a new day. She stops for a moment to take in the chaos unfolding around her. Young men with Hlinka rifles and batons charge through the crowd of teenagers, urging them off the school grounds, into the town beyond. Magda reaches for the arm of a man. ‘Where do we go?’ she asks.
‘Anywhere. You’re free now. Don’t you realise what’s going on? We’re taking back our town, this country!’